Empire

  There was one chance, and Thula took it on instinct. He released his grip on the knife, and let it float off. Instinctively, the Nomad reached for it. As he did so, Thula pushed himself away. The Nomad caught the knife by the blade and prepared to use it, but by then Thula had the Illyri’s pulser. His finger was already pulling the trigger when he realized that the pulser would be DNA locked. It could not be fired at an Illyri.

  Thula was dead.

  But Thula did not die. The pulser fired, and the pulse struck the Nomad full in the chest, destroying his internal organs. Great bubbles of blood burst from his mouth and floated into the air.

  And Thula watched in surprise as the Nomad’s life left him.

  • • •

  The secondary command deck was like a nightmare vision of a slaughterhouse. Bodies floated, bumping gently against the hull and one another, globules of blood from the dead coming together and then separating like amoebae, their biological identities seeming to combine even as their empty shells spun in uneasy orbits.

  “Galton,” said Paul.

  “I hear you.”

  “Restore gravity.”

  “Restoring gravity.”

  The bodies fell, and blood rained upon the deck.

  • • •

  Steven ran as soon as Paul gave the order to restore gravity, sealing the bulkhead doors as he went, leaving the carnage behind. Steven had fought the Illyri back on Earth, killing Securitats during the final bitter defense of Dundearg Castle, but it had been different then, almost like a computer game. He had fired, and targets had dropped, the blood largely invisible to him. But the trap they had sprung on the Nomads . . . Steven had never seen so much blood, and the whole scene was rendered more awful, more macabre, by the floating bodies. Yet he had been excited during the fight, pumped by blood lust, and had felt little fear.

  But there was more killing to be done.

  Within minutes he was at the docking port, stepping over the bodies of the Nomads Thula had killed. He sealed the final door.

  “Galton,” he said. “Stand by for release.”

  “Standing by.”

  Steven reached the door of the Nomad vessel just as Thula was dragging out the second of the dead pilots, the one with whom he had fought hand to hand.

  “You okay?” asked Steven.

  “I think so. But I killed him with a pulse,” said Thula.

  “How? All pulsers are supposed to be locked.”

  Thula showed Steven the weapon.

  “I’ve never seen one like that before,” said Steven. “It’s sleeker, more modern.”

  “Then wait until you see their ship.”

  Steven entered the cockpit and took in the shining consoles, the gleaming instrumentation. This vessel was more advanced, and better equipped, than even the newest of the Military craft that he had flown. The only Nomads that the Brigade had ever encountered before flew rust buckets, kept functioning with cannibalized parts. They could only dream of acquiring vessels like this one.

  “What the hell is this?” said Steven.

  A crackle of communication came from the console. The voice spoke Illyri, but Steven wasn’t wearing his helmet with its inbuilt translator. Unlike Paul he wasn’t yet adept enough at the language to be able to understand all that was being said. Still, it didn’t take a genius to catch the drift of it. Someone on the other Nomad vessel was anxious to know what was happening. If a response wasn’t received soon, there was a chance that the other ship might cut its losses and run or, worse, correctly conclude that the raiding party had failed in its mission and start opening fire.

  Thula stepped into the cockpit.

  “Can you fly it?” he asked Steven.

  “I don’t have to fly it. I just have to turn it and shoot.”

  “Well, can you do that?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll soon find out, won’t we?”

  Steven took the pilot’s seat and hit the button that activated the neural net. All Illyri ships had one, just in case of damage to an embedded Chip. The net, which resembled a white skullcap, flipped up and came to rest on Steven’s head. It was unsecured, which was fortunate. Otherwise, Steven would have been forced to hack into the weapons system, and they didn’t have time for that.

  “Galton?”

  “Ready.”

  “Okay, we’re closing the cockpit door. On my count: three, two, one. Release!”

  In the secondary control center, Galton made a final check of the doors to make sure all were fully sealed, then powered down the locking mechanism that bound the Nomad craft to the Envion. The vessel lurched away, and Steven took the controls. His first touch was too heavy and it turned so sharply that Thula was thrown to the floor.

  “If we live, I’m going to kick your ass for that,” he told Steven.

  “Do you want to fly it?”

  “I could do a better job.”

  Steven ignored him and called up a full display from the neural net. It appeared on the cockpit window. The movements of his pupils brought him into the weapons systems just as the second Nomad vessel appeared in the distance. It was moving slowly, circling the Envion, its crew uncertain how to react to the sudden undocking of the raiding ship. They were still attempting to communicate with it, but even with the neural net in place, Steven was no wiser about what exactly was being said. Like Illyri Chips, neural nets needed to be uploaded with languages for the translation tool to function, and most Illyri ships didn’t bother with an Illyri upload, for obvious reasons. Only equipment used by Brigade fighters and the other conquered races, like the Agrons or the Galateans, was programmed with an Illyri language upload.

  “It won’t be long before they figure out what’s happening,” said Thula, taking the copilot’s chair and belting himself in, just to be safe.

  Steven was taking in his ship’s armaments: forward, side, and rear cannon, and forty-eight torpedoes, the launchers at either side of the cockpit. The Nomad vessel might have been built to brave wormholes, but it was first and foremost an instrument of war.

  “I think they’ve already figured it out,” said Steven.

  The second Nomad ship was turning in their direction so that it would present a smaller target while enabling the aiming of its massive forward cannon. But Steven, apart from some minute adjustments to the controls, allowed their ship simply to drift.

  “Come on,” he whispered. “Come on . . .”

  The Nomad ship was a glowing silhouette on his lens, shrinking into itself as it turned. They would still be uncertain, Steven reasoned, wondering if, by any chance, some of the raiding party had survived and managed to free the ship; wondering if they were injured, or their communication system was down; wondering if what was clearly a very expensive craft could somehow be saved . . .

  If, if, if.

  “Now!” said Steven.

  He hit the ship’s thrusters. It accelerated so suddenly that he was pressed back into his seat, and he heard Thula shout a prayer to some unnamed god. Steven brought them parallel to the other ship, so their port sides were facing each other, and then turned swiftly to port himself. The maneuver took the Nomad by surprise, suddenly exposing its entire length to Steven’s cannon. Steven didn’t even wait until he was fully in position before he started firing. His first shots went wide of the Nomad’s stern, but the next barrage tore into it, ripping through its hull as Steven came perpendicular to it. Now the Nomad was returning fire, but the damage it had already incurred meant that it was shooting wildly while Steven was entirely focused. He allowed his ship to continue turning to port, and as the Nomad’s cockpit came into his sights he fired two torpedoes. He and Thula watched as they homed in on the Nomad, and struck home.

  The bow of the Nomad disintegrated, the stern separating and becoming almost vertical. Steven saw shapes amid the debris.

  Bodies. More bodi
es.

  And then the Nomad’s engines exploded, and the ship was just a memory.

  “For our friends,” he said.

  “For our friends,” echoed Thula.

  Steven hit the thrusters, and they headed back to the Envion.

  CHAPTER 21

  Once the Nomad vessel had docked safely with the Envion again, Paul instructed his unit—he was already thinking of it as “his unit”—to meet by the hangar, where the mysterious Dendra waited. Rizzo was the last to arrive. She had fresh blood on her hands, and some of it had streaked her face. Paul thought that she might have been crying, but he could not recall ever seeing Rizzo cry. It didn’t seem likely, somehow, or even possible.

  “De Souza’s dead,” she said. “He must have passed away during the fight.”

  Paul heard Steven swear, and an image of his mother’s disapproving face flashed through his mind. Oh, how he hoped the gentle, upright Mrs. Kerr would never have to hear of any of this killing and dying. Then her youngest son’s deteriorating language would be the least of her worries. And Paul swore too, for they had all liked and respected De Souza. He’d looked out for them, and never played favorites. Paul wished that someone had been with him when he died. De Souza had deserved better than to die alone.

  Paul turned toward the hangar doors and hailed Galton, who was still in the secondary control center. With so many of the Envion’s systems down, the only way to be certain that anything would work was to leave it in Galton’s hands.

  “Do you have an atmosphere reading from the hangar, Galton?”

  “It’s clean—or as clean as it ever is.”

  That was something, at least. It meant that the integrity of the hangar’s hull section had not been compromised, and the atmosphere was breathable. They could enter without suiting up. Unfortunately, the surveillance cameras across the entire ship were no longer functioning, and the screen beside the entry door, which would usually have displayed an image of what lay behind it, was blank. When they entered the hangar, they would be going in without any foreknowledge of what might be waiting for them.

  “What about lighting?” asked Paul.

  “It looks like most of it went down with the cameras. I think you’ll have emergency illumination, but it’ll still be pretty dark in there.”

  Bad. The last thing Paul wanted was to open those doors and come under fire from unknown assailants who could see them but who couldn’t be seen in turn.

  “Can you patch me into their comms system?”

  “I can try.”

  While Paul waited, he tried to figure out how what had begun as a simple mission to check up on some scientists and engineers with a broken radio had somehow ended up with a crippled destroyer, the loss of the best part of two units, a gunfight, the destruction of one Nomad vessel and the capture of another, and the appearance of a previously unknown, and certainly hostile, silicon-based species. Oh, and not to forget the discovery of a tower left behind by another alien civilization, about which nobody had bothered to tell the dumb human recruits. It was possible that events could still take a turn for the worse, but—aside from the death of everyone else on board the Envion—it was hard to see how.

  Paul heard a crackle in his ear.

  “I’ve got a channel open, and their systems have responded,” said Galton. “You can talk to them now.”

  “Hailing the craft in our hangar,” said Paul. “This is Lieutenant Paul Kerr, ranking Military officer on board the Envion. This ship is now under Brigade control. I order all occupants of your craft to disembark—unarmed—and lie facedown on the deck. You are being monitored. Failure to obey will be interpreted as a hostile action. Respond.”

  The answer came back almost immediately.

  “This is Councillor Baldus Tiray of the Illyri Council of Government. How can we be sure that this isn’t a trap?”

  Peris looked at Paul.

  “May I?” he said.

  “Go ahead,” said Paul, noting once again how Peris was determined not to undermine his authority.

  “Councillor Tiray,” said Peris. “I am Peris of House Gault, formerly of the general staff of Lord Andrus. We met once, a long time ago.”

  There was a pause.

  “I remember. You are far from Earth, Peris.”

  “And you are far from Illyr. How many of you are there?”

  “Two. Just my aide, Alis, and me.”

  “Then I wish to confirm the truth of Lieutenant Kerr’s statement to you. The Envion is under Military control, but it is badly damaged, and an evacuation will be necessary. For security purposes, I would advise you to follow the lieutenant’s order: disarm, disembark, and make yourselves as comfortable as possible on the deck.”

  Another pause. Paul could almost picture Tiray and Alis conferring. In their position, he might well have been cautious too. It didn’t take much imagination to picture Paul and Peris with a group of Nomads holding guns to their heads as they were forced to lure the survivors from the shuttle.

  “We submit,” said Tiray at last. “We’re coming out. You’ll see that we’re unarmed, and we’ll keep our hands in the air until we’re on the deck.”

  “We’ll be watching,” said Paul.

  “Watching a blank screen,” Thula muttered.

  “When did you get so surly?” said Paul.

  “Sometime between waking up this morning, and now.”

  “You need to have more faith in people. Just to help you find it, you can be first into the hangar bay with me.”

  Thula sighed deeply.

  “I don’t think that I want you as my lieutenant anymore.”

  “Noted.”

  Paul addressed Steven and Rizzo.

  “We go in. You cover us from here. You see anything you don’t like, and you have my permission to fire at it.”

  “I don’t like you,” said Thula to Paul as he loaded his shotgun. “Does that mean I can fire at you?”

  “You love and respect me like a brother,” said Paul. “Ready?”

  He held his finger above the door release button.

  “I can’t stand my brother,” said Thula. “Ready.”

  Paul hit it, and the door opened. He and Thula peered through the gap and saw two figures lying flat on the deck in a shaft of illumination from the open shuttle. Orange emergency lighting flashed from the walls.

  “You keep them under your gun,” said Paul. “I’ll take the shuttle.”

  They came in fast, Thula moving to a standing position over the two prostrate forms while Paul inched his way along the hull of the shuttle. He could see that the pilot’s and copilot’s seats were empty, but the angle prevented him from viewing the lower part of the shuttle’s interior. He would be exposed while he passed the open door but he had no choice. He backed up, the shotgun at his shoulder ready to fire.

  The shuttle was empty.

  Paul relaxed, perhaps for the first time since they had come in sight of the crippled Envion. His shoulders and back ached. He wanted to slough off his uniform and wash away the blood and filth, but the possibility of a shower was limited.

  “Steven, Rizzo,” he said. “The shuttle is clear, but help me search the hangar.”

  Paul was taking no chances, not when they were so close to safety, however relative.

  Steven and Rizzo entered, and together the three young humans made sure that no one was hiding in the shadows of the dock. When they were done, they returned to where Thula continued to hold a gun over the two Illyri on the deck. They were still lying facedown in loose-fitting flight suits, their hands clasped over the backs of their heads. Paul ordered Steven to frisk them. He patted down the first one, found nothing, then moved on to the second. He was about halfway through the search when he paused and looked puzzled.

  “They’re called breasts,” said a female voice from the floor, ?
??and I’d appreciate it if you’d take your hands off them.”

  Steven jumped back as though he’d been scalded. Thula looked at him with amusement.

  “I could ask you if you found anything,” said Thula, “but I think we already know the answer.”

  “You can get up,” Paul told the Illyri.

  Peris stepped forward to help the male, the one called Tiray. Paul offered his hand to the female, Alis. He saw that she was small for an Illyri, with narrow golden eyes. She looked at his outstretched palm.

  “Do you want to touch me inappropriately as well?” she asked.

  Paul wasn’t sure if this was a trick question, but decided very quickly that the correct answer was no, so that was the one he gave. Alis accepted his hand, and he pulled her to her feet.

  “Councillor Tiray,” said Peris, “this is Lieutenant Kerr.”

  “We have a lot of questions for you—” said Paul, but a voice from his comms unit prevented him from saying more.

  “They’ll have to wait, Lieutenant,” said Galton. “We’re losing all remaining systems rapidly. It’s a wonder the Envion has held together for as long as she has. I should just have time to send a distress drone into the wormhole before we start the evacuation.”

  “No!” said Tiray. “You mustn’t do that.”

  “We’re on a dying ship, far from home,” said Paul. “Regulations require that we inform the Military authorities of what’s happened here.”

  “If you do, you’ll bring more of them down on us,” said Tiray.

  “He’s right,” said Alis. “They’ll come.”

  “Who, the Nomads?” asked Paul.

  “I don’t believe that we were attacked by Nomads,” said Tiray. “And somehow, I don’t think you do either.”